This is the Jesus that I want to follow.

We don’t celebrate and admire and worship Jesus because he was a religious man.

Jesus believed in asking questions. He believed in challenging what he was taught and presenting new ideas. 

He didn’t walk into temple, sit down and listen mindlessly, then walk back out again to spout the rabbi’s words to others. He walked into temple as a young man and told his elders, his rabbis, the men of authority in his life that he wasn’t sure they had it quite right. He told them what he thought; he told them they might be wrong and challenged them to think about it.

He believed that the static and stagnant traditional ways that things were always done were not necessarily the best ways.

He believed that people mattered more than laws or rules or rituals. He believed that God was more about loving than about judging and condemning. 

He believed true religion was about the fruit you produced with your life to touch others, rather than the effect you produced with your words to impress others. He believed and practiced speaking what was true instead of speaking what was popular. 

Jesus was constantly reaching down to pull others up, while everyone around him was reaching up to pull themselves up—in status, in favor, in prosperity, in popularity.

Jesus was always saying yes to those that everyone else said no to. He said come to those that everyone else told to go. Jesus was touching people, talking to people, sitting down and eating with people that everyone else avoided like the plague, revolted and disgusted by their poverty or sickness or social status.

Jesus demonstrated who God was, showed us how to follow God, how to honor God, how to serve God, not by being a faithful follower of the rules, not by obeying the words of his religious leaders, not by keeping tradition, but by speaking in brutal honesty, by pouring out overwhelming mercy on others, by living every moment of his life as a servant to the world around him.

This is the Jesus that I love. This is the Jesus that I celebrate and remember at Christmas. This is the Jesus that I want to follow.

Christmas is coming, again.

Christmas is coming again. Like it does every year. And I'm struggling with Christmas, again. It's still a month and a half away, but I'm already getting cranky and wishing it was over. I'm already trying to figure out if there's some reasonable way to skip it without anyone minding. I'm already feeling stressed, frustrated, even angry.

I met a woman at the grocery store a while back who doesn't celebrate Christmas. She and her children celebrate Winter Solstice together, and every year they exchange homemade gifts. For months abead of time, they plan and gather supplies, and they start building or carving or gluing or sewing something special for each person in their family. And I just thought that was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard.

That family's celebration doesn't involve writing wish lists or agreeing on a price range, finding Black Friday deals or fighting the crowds at the mall. Their Winter Solstice celebration is all about giving love and time, investing some thought and creativity, all to say, I love you.

Can you imagine knowing each member of your family well enough that you could think of something personal and meaningful to give them, something that wasn't picked from the list they wrote and gave to you? Maybe some people are that close to their parents and siblings, and it's  easy to pick out meaningful gifts, but my guess is most of the time we aren't and we can't. Can you imagine spending the kind of time that it would take to carve a walking stick, or knit a blanket or write a touching poem for each person you loved? 

Do the gifts we buy that were picked out from the lists we were given, tell the people in our family that we love them? Do they actually mean anything at all, or do they merely fulfill the obligation and. continue the tradition? 

What can we do instead, or what do you already do instead? Obviously, not all of us are going to have the skills it takes to make homemade gifts for everyone like my friend and her family. But what can we do with our families that makes Christmas more meaningful and magical? What can we do to fill Christmas day with love and joy?

Moving tomorrow...

So, I'm one of those people who really likes to have a routine, to plan ahead, to know what's coming before it comes. Because if I don't have those things, it's scary, something unknown may happen.

I'm excited about moving to Keizer, and I've been wanting to move to Keizer for a while now. But now that I am moving, I'm scared. And worried and nervous and stressed and not sleeping very well. I thought that maybe I would just be so happy because now I'm going to live so close to my family and I get to go to massage school like I wanted, and I don't have to work at a bank anymore... I was supposed to feel ecstatic. But instead, I just feel scared. I feel scared of all the things that are going to be different after we move. Everything is going to be different.

See, I really like my grocery store, and my library, and the neighborhood I walk in, and the restaurants I go to, and the people that I run into that I know. But in Keizer, the grocery store isn't across the street and it might be set up differently, and I'm going to have to find things and not know where they are. And the library isn't going to be just down the street, and I don't know which library I want to go to- Salem, Chemeketa, Silverton... And I don't even know if Keizer has a frozen yogurt place for Craig and I to go to for a date.

I'm just terrible at change. Even the changes I want the most in life still freak me out. I hate feeling this way. I hope it feels better soon.

Wow, here we go again...

I'm so excited for the changes that lie ahead of me right now! It's just now feeling real. I really am leaving my job at the bank in two weeks. I may never find the need to work in a bank again because hopefully in the next year or so, I will be a licensed massage therapist. I really am moving to Keizer and will be incredibly close to most of my family.

It does feel weird that I'm going to live in Salem/Keizer. I haven't lived in Salem since I was ten. I really like cozy, small town living. Even Albany has felt cozy and small town to me the last five years because of our location and all the things I can do within walking distance. So now I'm moving to the big city (yes I know Salem is not the big city, but still...) and I will have to drive all the way down River Rd to get to Fred Meyer instead of just walking down the street. And I will have to drive all the way downtown to get to the library instead of walking a couple blocks down the other street. Oh, the horrors! What will I do? I know I'll get used to it; I don't know if I'll actually like it or not.

Being close to family, though. Mmmm. That will feel good. I've chosen not to go to too many concerts and baseball games and plays because it didn't fit into my schedule to drive 30 or 40 minutes each way to see my nieces and nephews doing all the brilliant things they do. I want to be there more often. I want to know them more, and have them know that I'm there for them because I love them so much. I think the things I'm looking forward to the most are impromptu walks with my siblings, last minute dinner plans with family, inviting friends or family over to our place without feeling bad that they have to drive all the way to Albany, and having people pop by because we're close enough that they can. I'm looking forward to feeling more connected to the the people who are most important in my life, and hopefully making new connections, too.

I'm so excited to see what life will bring as I venture into becoming a massage therapist. My heart is to help people heal and be well and whole. I have so many ideas and plans about how I can do this, and what it will look like, and what I will be like in this role. But I know that I will not really know how it will be until it happens. I just have to wait and see. I look forward to watching this new journey unfold before me, to digging deeper into who I am and just what I can do with the gifts God has given me. To be honest, for just a few days, after I had already given my notice at work, I felt scared, like maybe I was making the wrong decision, maybe it wasn't going to work, and I wouldn't be able to cut it. I just had to take a deep breath and remind myself that I've wanted this for years, that I'm meant to do this. I reminded myself that God told me almost a decade ago that I would use my hands to heal. I know that I am on the right journey.

It's going to be hard to wait until January to start my classes, but I know in the meantime, I will find plenty of things to keep me occupied as we make this transition in life.

The modern-day art of stone-throwing

It seems to me that it's perfectly acceptable in Christian circles nowadays to be a stone-thrower. The term stone-thrower may not mean much to non-religious folks, but in the Old Testament of the Bible, people were allowed and even obligated by religious law to throw stones at certain types of sinners until they died.

When Jesus came around, he had a very clear message for the ultra-religious who sought out sinners to stone. When the local religious leaders brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery to Jesus, he said, "All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stone." Obviously not one man standing there could pick up the first stone and throw it at the woman with a clear conscience. Every one of them walked away when it was put to them that way.

Then Jesus spoke to the woman whose life he had just saved and said, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?"

And then: "Neither do I."

Jesus made his opinion very clear that no one has the right to condemn another person because of their sins. And that he doesn't offer condemnation either?

Isn't Christianity supposed to be all about becoming like Christ? So what gives?

Why is it so acceptable to be a stone-thrower in the Christian church today? A good conservative evangelical Christian thinks nothing of throwing out words of condemnation and judgement to heap on people they believe are sinning. Unwed mothers, homosexuals, strippers, atheists, liberal democrats. The list could go on and on of people who are labeled as "sick," "lost," "gross," "fallen," "disgusting," "headed to hell," "leading others astray," "living a life of sin."

What happened to the Christian principle that all of us have fallen short of perfection, that we're all on equal ground before God? What happened to the Christian principles of love, mercy and kindness?

And why are only some of the sins listed in the Bible worthy of verbal stone-throwing by today's Christians? Jesus never condemned the sinners that he spent so much time with: Levi and his tax collector friends, the immoral woman who washed his feet with perfume, the Samaritan woman at the well who had had five different husbands. But he stated in no uncertain terms that the sins of greed, deceit, slander, pride and foolishness are vile sins that make a person unacceptable to God.

If we're going to heap judgement on the people around us, let's at least be fair about it and pile on just as many put-downs for rich people and liars as we do for teen mothers and gays. What would people think if Christians started going around telling all their rich friends that they were headed straight to hell because of their greed?

There's nothing Christ-like about being so judgmental and self-righteous that you believe you have the right to throw the first stone at another person. That's not Christianity; that's hypocrisy.

Thoughts on the RNC...

I watched the Republican National Convention this last week on TV and came away with a few thoughts.

Politicians are liars: According to the radio and newspaper the next day, a lot of what the speakers said during the convention was either highly exaggerated or out-right lies. Why do politicians think we will like them better if they tell us things that are not true? The President of the United States is kind of an important job, and every four years we hire someone that we know has lied to us just to get us to like him more. Isn't that kind of sad?

The Republican candidates are boring: I listened to lots of speeches over three evenings. The most boring and pointless ones were delivered by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. All of the other speeches I caught were exciting, interesting, funny, or at least bearable, but I couldn't even listen to Paul and Mitt. I just completely zoned them out about ten minutes into each of their speeches. They have nothing to say; I've already heard it. It's all so generalized and dumbed down and panders to their base. 

The Republican platform of issues sometimes doesn't make sense: It was very confusing to me because the speakers kept saying that the Republican party wants to protect the sanctity of life, defend traditional marriage, protect the freedom of religion and protect our right to own guns. But isn't traditional versus non-traditional marriage an issue of religious belief? In traditional marriage, a man and woman get married by the clergy in a place of worship and make vows before God. So if we had true freedom of religion in our country, wouldn't that include the right for people to participate in non-traditional marriage arrangements if they wanted to, and get married to anyone they wanted to? And I understand that people want the right to own guns so they can protect themselves from burglars and such, but how does shooting burglars mesh with the idea of the sanctity of human life? That just doesn't seem completely logical to me.

Clint Eastwood is a little bit fruity in the head: If you didn't watch the RNC then you don't know, but Clint Eastwood is kind of losing it a little. And he probably wasn't the best celebrity to put out there to represent the Republican party and make them look smart and logical and sane. It was just weird.

Chris Christie would like to run for President someday: I don't know if you noticed, but Governor Chris Christie from New Jersey really thinks he's hot stuff. And he's pretty sure that he's doing a rock-awesome job in New Jersey, and he's not afraid to share that. But he really didn't have a lot to say about Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney. So my guess is, he's really not that excited about either one of them, but the convention was a great opportunity to get out the word about how good he would be as the President. Just wait, you'll see.

Excited to watch the DNC next and see what kind of lies are told, who's boring, who's crazy, and what just doesn't make any sense. It's politics; what a circus!

I have a confession to make.

I go to church at Fred Meyer.

Someone asked me the other day whether I had gone back to church, or if I was just reading my Bible at home instead. I simply answered that I still was not going to church and didn't say much more than that. But the honest and complete answer would have been, no I don't go to church, and no I don't read my Bible at home, and no I don't pray before I eat dinner. I could have continued the conversation by sharing that I also don't start each morning with prayer and devotions, and I don't read books by popular Christian authors, and I don't have my radio set to a Christian music station, and I don't go to Bible study, and I don't have a prayer partner. 

I go to church at Fred Meyer. Every Sunday morning like clockwork. And I'm only being slightly facetious with this statement. Church is all about encountering God, right? Well, I find God in the produce section of the grocery store. He's there every Sunday morning, and even when I go on Saturday or on a Thursday night. Every time I show up, He does too. I'm passionate and excited and obsessed with fruits and vegetables because they are beautiful and delicious and good for me. I feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to buy as many different fruits and vegetables as I could ever want, every week, and I rejoice in the beauty of it every time. And when I'm rejoicing and feeling grateful for the beautiful things in my life, voila, God's there.

I encounter God every time I go on a walk. Lately, I've been walking almost every day, and every time, God shows up! When I'm walking, it's my thinking time, my pondering, wondering, questioning time. It's the time when I bring my mind and heart back to a positive and healthy place if I've been upset about something. It's the time when I think of solutions to my problems. On my walks, I sometimes bark at dogs or sing with birds or compliment trees on the beautiful leaves they've grown. And they all talk back. So I'm either crazy, or I'm interacting with God.

I keep running into God everywhere; it's crazy how many places He and I happen to show up at the same time! Every time I listen to a beautiful song, smile at a stranger, name a spider, sing to a houseplant, clean my bathroom, lay under a tree, gaze into my husband's eyes, dance in the rain, examine a blade of grass, imagine a unicorn, read a great book, sing with the stars, listen to the wind, write a poem, give a hug, every time God seems to show up, and He and I are doing it together.

And then every once in a while, I show up to a church service. And sometimes I see God there too, but not every time.

Within These Walls

Within these walls

I can't hear anything

I can't see anything

I can't touch anything

I can't feel anything

Within these walls

I can't find the rhythm

That my body yearns for

It hungers and thirsts

To move through the cycles

Of the moon each month

To rise and fall with the sun

Each day and night

To find it's pulse

In the slow and constant churning

Of the earth beneath my feet

Without being able to feel and touch and see and hear

The universe that guides me

I am lost

If I live each day of my life

Within a set of walls

Physical wooden beams and sheetrock

The mental boundaries of my mind

My emotional protections from heartbreak

If I use all these walls

To hold life at arm's length

Am I even really alive

Can I learn how to live

Outside these walls

So I can finally hear and touch and feel

All that the universe holds for me

All that I'm meant to experience

So I can eventually be

Who I'm meant to be

We used to have a pet spider...

Craig and I used to have a pet spider. Actually, I should say that Craig had a pet spider. He's scared of spiders usually, and they're not allowed to live in the apartment, but this little guy lived in the corner of our doorway on our front porch. Apparently, that's okay with Craig even though it's practically the same thing as being inside. I usually name our pet bugs, but Craig took a shining to this particular eight-legged friend and gave him the name Moses.

Craig's pet Moses was a brown spider, not too big, not too small, and was definitely a homebody. He was there in his little corner day and night, to say goodbye to in the morning when we left for work and say hello to when we got home in the evening. It was such a joy to hear Craig greet his sweet Moses each day.

One day, we learned two important facts about our spider friend. Number one was that Moses was a girl. Number two was that Moses was going to be a mother. The sudden sight of Moses now guarding a delicate sack of eggs brought some concern to both Craig and I. I love babies as much as anyone, but if you've ever seen Charlotte's Web, you know that the spider babies that come out of an egg sack are quite numerous. And I will remind you that Moses' home was in the corner of our front door. I think we both were able to clearly envision a million spider babies coming out of their eggs and seeping through the cracks around our door to invade our home.

But what do we do? Moses is our pet; we let her live there for weeks, and it didn't feel right to evict her just because she had laid some eggs. Everyone has the right to have children. We discussed trying to gently remove the egg sack and place it somewhere farther away from our apartment, but we knew that Moses' sole purpose in life now was to guard this egg sack she had created. How would we be able to move the egg sack without endangering Moses' life? Could we move the egg sack without killing all those precious little spider babies?

Several days passed, and we looked up at our little spider family-to-be every time we walked through the door wondering what we would do. We knew the spider eggs had to go, but neither one of us wanted to do it. You could see the babies inside growing bigger under the watchful eyes of their mother. You could see Moses' posture grow more protective and cautious each day as her children came closer to hatching.

I decided to try to move the egg sack. I wasn't scared of being attacked by a protective mother spider. It was worth trying to save the babies. I took a piece of paper and tried to slide it up under the egg sack, expecting it to be soft, squishy, maybe a little bit sticky. Instead, I found that the egg sack was completely encased in a clear, hard shell and very firmly attached to the wall. There was no way I was going to be able to detach the egg sack and move it elsewhere.

Finally, this morning, I came home from the grocery store to find the doorway completely cleaned of webbing, and Moses and her eggs gone. I was relieved that it was done and that I didn't have to do it, but, at the same time, I think I miss Moses. 

I'm sorry Craig killed your babies, Moses. I know you worked hard to produce them, lay them and protect them. Your life came to nothing because you chose the wrong place to lay your egg sack.

How sad.

Breathing

Instead of washing the dishes

Instead of making the bed

Instead of doing my daily dose

Of doctor prescribed exercise

Instead of putting on makeup

Or doing my hair

I'm laying on the floor

Breathing

In and out both

Because lately I haven't remembered well

How to breathe

All the way through and in and out both

God, it feels good to breathe today

Plans and goals and dreams...

Making plans for the future doesn't seem to do me much good. I can dream and hope, search and strategize, lay out a step-by-step plan, but in the end, more often than not, I still end up someplace completely unexpected.

Is it like this for everyone? Don't some people make goals and then achieve them? Don't some people plot out a course for their life and then follow it?

I just don't even know how to feel about it. Sometimes I find myself grieving for the things in life I thought I should have and feel like I've lost, for all the things I sought out and never found. I grieve and ask myself why, wishing it could be different, not because what I do have is wrong, but because I thought everything was going to be different.

And then other times, I delight in the fact that I seemingly have no control over the course of my own life. I rejoice in following this path because I believe I can trust in it, because I have the sense that this path leads me to wherever it is I'm really supposed to be.

And over and over again, my prayer is simply for patience. I can't bring myself to pray that what I want is what I will get because I know I'm not wise enough to want what I need. But I pray that I can faithfully follow the path that has been laid out before my feet, with patience.

So I'm here in this place, and it's not a bad place, but I feel stuck or stagnant, at a stand-still. And I just want to find some way to move forward, not in a few years, but right now. So I stop again and pray for another dose of patience because no matter how much I plan and scheme to try to make something happen, I still can't control the path.